WHO warns Thai govt about risks of FTAs

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WHO warns govt about risks of FTAs
Pratch Rujivanarom
The Nation

Say trade deals could have hidden impacts

BANGKOK: -- EXPERTS SAY the government should carefully consider before signing free-trade agreements (FTA) - as people could be hurt by deals that prolong drug patents and restrict information about medicine.

Acting World Health Organisation (WHO) representative to Thailand Richard Brown, in a speech at the International Trade and Health Conference at the Sukosol Hotel yesterday, said people's rights should not be sacrificed to lower trade barriers.

"Careful consideration should be given to the potential impact of international trade on health before any legal agreements are established," Brown said.

The WHO, Public Health Ministry and other partners had agreed to strengthen the government's technical and analytical capacity in order to discuss FTA deals and manage international health business, he said.

In accordance with the WHO's concern, health ministry deputy permanent secretary Amnuay Gajeena said academic studies would be used to ensure that decisions about free trade deals would be made for the greater good of Thai people.

"The ministry has designated the international trade and healthcare issue to be among its nine international priority missions to prepare for the current trend, as international free trade is having even more impact on Thai people's healthcare," Amnuay said.

The impact of international trade on healthcare has been a concern by non-government groups as well, as trade talks often include healthcare related issues such as extending the patents of medicines, protection of information about medical drugs or allowing products that harm people's health.

Kannikar Kijtiwatchakul, co-ordinator of FTA Watch, said most trade deals already signed and 70 per cent of FTA discussions in the past decade were about regulations such as the control of drug patents.

"Thailand is a member state of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), so it is subject to WTO regulations but FTAs with developed countries such as the European Union or United States would force us to accept stricter terms for healthcare-related regulations," Kannikar explained.

She said drug companies could, for example, have a major impact and monopolise a country's market if they could prolong medical patents and secure information about drugs. That could result in expensive medicines.

"Our study revealed that the country will bear up to Bt100 billion if the foreign drug companies are allowed to monopolise the medicine market, compare to only around a billion baht which the Thai business sector may lose if trade barriers weren't lowered."

The problem was the government thinks FTAs are solely about trade, so only business agencies were invited to discuss on the decision, she said. This would make the country prone to long-term disadvantage.

"This is a good sign that information from other sides will be weighed. I emphasise that the government should be more careful before signing any new FTA," she said.

Source: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/national/WHO-warns-govt-about-risks-of-FTAs-30263981.html


-- The Nation 2015-07-08

[zakk9]

FTAs and globalisation are mostly good for international corporations and a small number of rich nations at the cost of those living in the third world. It's the new imperialism.

[geriatrickid]

The WHO is not in a position to counsel anyone or any country on health policy. As the Ebola crisis and now the MERS crisis has demonstrated the old professional class of health scientists has been replaced by incompetent fonctionnaires and third world appointees.

And yet, here we have the WHO which can't even run its own shop, offering its views as if they somehow are relevant. In case the WHO forgot, countries like Thailand have reduced once effective anti virals and antibiotics to useless status because their drug manufacturers made low quality copies, their health systems over prescribed the drugs and their factory food industries used antibiotics for purposes for which they were not intended. Handing over new drugs to irresponsible health care systems is the worst possible strategy.

There is a startling report now released that is making the headlines at various media outlets. I am plagiarizing from WIRE;

WHO Ebola response was an utter failure, report says

The World Health Organisation failed in its response to the Ebola epidemic, concludes an independent report commissioned by WHO in March. The UN health body had already previously admitted on several occasions that its response to the outbreak, was "slow", that it "didn’t work effectively in coordination with partners," and co-discoverer of the outbreak Peter Piot. The report calls the African WHO officials incompetent.

The BBC reports that the review's chair, former Oxfam chief executive Dame Barbara Stocking, said WHO lacks the "capacity and culture" to face global health emergencies, perhaps the most damning surmising of its problems to date.

The WHO like other UN agencies expects the western nations to finance the agency while the WHO appoints incompetent idiots to administer and run the agency. The WHO is on life support now and it's function is quickly being reduced to that of a depository for health reports. As the Ebola epidemic demonstrated, the infectious disease scientists in Canada, the USA and at the EU health agency were the ones who had to deal with the problem. For all of their claims of solidarity with the developing world, neither China nor Russia contributed anything of value.

[sammygood]

WHO is there with an agenda for NWO

did american workers get better with free trade agreements ? companies just run to china & mexico for their production

[trogers]

Price fixing in developed countries by drug and insurance companies is the major reason for the high cost of health care.

[Ulic]

They are not Free Trade Agreements, they are just Trade Agreements. We lower this tariff,

and give you access to our market to give us access to your market for these products and

honor our intellectual property laws, etc, etc... Nothing is free, there are winners and losers

on both sides. Low paying manufacturing jobs go to China, India, etc, high end manufacturing

of industrial equipment, robotics, computer software, medicine stays in USA/Europe with

patens protected. That is except for China, they rip off everything from high speed train

designs to electronics. Just know you are getting made in China quality for products.

Some stuff excellent, (i-Phones, etc) some stuff awful.(Chinese stainless steel, etc..)

The only real free trade agreement is between the countries of the European Union.

(not including the Euro, but that is an effort)

Edited July 8, 2015 by Ulic